Odinn's Child Read Online Free PDF

sun had re-emerged and the cut hay was steaming in the heat. All except one patch. It was the area where Thorgunna had been working. Here the hay still lay sodden, a dark blotch on the hillside, and though Thorgunna went back to work, turning the hay steadily, the workers noticed that the hay never dried out. It clung flat and damp on the ground, gave off a rank smell and the heavy handle of Thorgunna's hay rake stayed wet.
    That evening Thorodd repeated his question. 'Was that strange thunderstorm an omen, Thorgunna?' he asked.

'Yes,' my mother replied. 'It was an omen for one of us.' 'Who is that?' asked Thorodd.

    'For me,' came Thorgunna's calm reply. 'I expect I will shortly be leaving you.'
    She went off to her splendid bed, walking stiffly as though her muscles were aching. In the morning she did not appear at breakfast to join the other workers before they returned to the haymaking, and Thorodd went to see her. He coughed discreetly outside the hanging drapes of the four-poster bed until Thorgunna called on him to enter. Immediately he noted that she was sweating heavily and her pillows were drenched. He began to make a few mumbled enquiries as to how she felt, but Thorgunna in her usual brusque fashion interrupted him.
    'Please pay attention,' she said. 'I am not long for this world, and you are the only person around here who has the sense to carry out my last wishes. If you fail to do so, then you and your household will suffer.' Her voice was throaty and she was clearly finding it an effort to speak. 'When I die, as I soon will, you are to arrange for me to be buried at Skalhot, not here on this out-of-the-way farm. One day Skalhot will achieve renown. Just as important, I want you to burn all my bedding; I repeat, all of it.'
    Thorodd must have looked puzzled, for Thorgunna went on, 'I know that your wife would love to get her hands on it. She has been hankering after the sheets and pillows, and all the rest of it from the very first day I got here. But I repeat: burn all of it. Thurid can have my scarlet cloak - that too she has been coveting since I first arrived and it ought to keep her happy. As for the rest of my possessions you can sell off my clothes to those who want them, deduct my burial costs from the money, and give the rest of the money to the church, including this gold ring,' and she removed the gold ring which she had been wearing since the day she arrived and handed it to Thorodd.
    A few days later she died. One of the house women drew back the curtain and found her sitting up in bed, her jaw hanging slack. It took three strong men to lift her corpse and carry it out to the shed, where she was wrapped in a shroud of unstitched linen, and the same carpenter who had made her special bed nailed together a coffin large enough to contain her body.
    Thorodd genuinely tried to carry out Thorgunna's last wishes. He had the bed frame knocked apart, and the pieces and the mattress and all the furnishings carried out to the yard. The carpenter took an axe to the bed frame and its four posts and made kindling, and the bonfire was ready. At that point Thurid intervened. She told her husband that it was a wanton waste to destroy such beautiful items, which could never be replaced. There would never be another chance to acquire such exotic goods. Thorodd reminded her of Thorgunna's express last wishes, but Thurid sulked, then threw her arms around him and wheedled. Eventually the poor man compromised. The eiderdown and pillows and the coverlet would be thrown on the flames; she could keep the rest.

    Thurid did not lose a second in seizing the sheets and hangings and the embroidered canopy, and rushed them into the house. When she came back out, Thorodd had already left the yard and was walking away across the fields, so Thurid darted over to the fire and managed to salvage the coverlet before it was scorched, though it was some time before she dared to produce it before her husband.

    Up to this point there